


Letters

by TheGreenMeridian



Series: Battles [5]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Established Relationship, Love Notes, M/M, epistiolary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24596740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreenMeridian/pseuds/TheGreenMeridian
Summary: Harry being away on the sledge party doesn’t mean they can’t still write notes to each other.
Relationships: Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Series: Battles [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555234
Comments: 17
Kudos: 38





	Letters

**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon Henry as being very smart but not necessarily having spent much time on his writing at school.
> 
> It’s been fun to research the real Henry Foster Collins. He grew up in the same town I spent my teenage years and early 20s, and then went to the Greenwich Hospital School (a naval boarding school) just after his 11th birthday. Children had to be orphaned, motherless, or with a father serving at a distant post. I think he was the latter, but I’m struggling to find anything of his father’s naval records. I’m trying to find out more but the British National Archives haven’t digitised his School file yet and I can’t order a hard copy until they reopen.
> 
> There are a shitton of Terror and Erebus related documents that have been digitised though, and at the moment they’re free to download if you make a (free!) account, so if you feel like becoming a Navy nerd, it’s never been easier.
> 
> As always, come find me on tumblr!
> 
> Thegreenmeridian.tumblr.com

Need to see you before you go when can i come

——

When I next approach you, follow my lead.

——

I hope i taught you a lot about the ice tonite & a lot about other things too though those things we best keep to our selfs. We should do this more though come up with reasons to be together maybe you could teach me science or i could teach you more of ice or you could study me what ever you can think of im sure will be clever enough to fool every 1. I want more time with you i miss you so much every day & i need more of you than i presently get. You look so pretty when you sleep did you no that i wish i could stay & watch you more but I have to go back to my hamok allone. 1 day i want to take rooms with you or a cotage in the country where no 1 could hear us and have you every which way until we fall a sleep together then wake with you & do it all again & walk hand in hand with you out side & take all my meals with you. Please be safe and carefull to morrow and allways till you come back to me and i can keep you safe my self.

good nite Harry sweet dreams i love you.

——

I found your note when I awoke, and I want all of that too, my Henry. When we find a lead, my first thought is sure to be of how much closer I am to making a home with you.

I will miss you every moment I’m away. I promise you, my love, I will do my best to return to you in one piece. You must do your best for me too, and try not to despair too much while I am gone.

With greatest love and affection,

Your Harry

——

My Harry

i hated having to say good bye to you with all the rest i wanted instead to kiss you & then to follow after you to keep you safe. You looked so hansome in your wig & my hands wanted badly to be under it & feeling your lovely hair. Youll not read this till your back but i write it all the same because i miss you & i can pretend youll hear this as i write it & no i am thinking of you no matter how far you are from me. Mr B. came to find me to give me a book i think he knows why i look so sad today he said i ought to read it & try to keep my self in desent spirits. He said it was a peekaresk novel what ever that means its a good 1 in any case about a woman born of a lady Newgate convikt i like her very much so far. We should read it together when your back because youll like her to im sure of it & your voice is so very lovely. All of you is lovely my Harry. I wish i could kiss you in front of them all & show them all how lucky i am that such a smart & lovely man is mine. I hope your having fun out there & are finding lots to look at not many spesimins to see im sure but you allways find something to be excited about dont you. I am jelous of how you see the world its like its all new to you all something wonderfull to discover & its one of the things i love most about you. I want to take you all around the world some day or at least to the bits ive been so i can see it all through your pretty eyes i think you could make even Hastings seem exciting & new to me. You made me seem exciting & new too when you first looked at me & touched me like youd never seen anything like me which I supose you hadnt but it was still like being discovered. 

Your notes are allways nicer than mine your better at writing than me but i want to get better for you Mr B. said hed help me & offered to read this over but i want to keep this 1 privite for just us 2.

Your Henry

——

My beloved Henry,

It seems like decades since last I saw you, and decades more until I shall see you again. You will of course not see this letter until I’m with you once more, but though it is poor substitute for the real thing, writing to you is as close to hearing your voice as I can get.

I wish I could have said goodbye to you this morning. Last night was wonderful as ever but still, I would have liked to have been able to kiss you before we set off.

You would have enjoyed today, I think. It is so beautiful out here, so untouched by Man, I have never seen anything quite like it. You, of course, have seen open ocean and many other such wonders the likes of which I can only dream, but even still, I think you would have found the shapes of the ice as fascinating as I. At the very least, you would have listened to me prattle on about them in that way you have that makes me smile before kissing me and calling me smart, and that would have been just as delightful. 

I made quite the fool of myself in believing I was strong enough to haul the sled. You likely would have managed it without anyone else to help you, but I sadly I am not one ounce as strong as you and thus fell flat on my face, much to the amusement of the others. Lieutenant Gore has been kind, though, and indulgent of my excitement about the natural sciences, and I am grateful to him. He’s a good man, a good leader, and I have faith he shall steer us all along well. We’re fast developing a friendship, he and I, and I am glad to have a friendly face on this journey. It’s been good to spend time with Tom Hartnell, too, he’s a good heart and I’ve worried about him since his brother passed, as you know. He seems to be doing well, though, and I’ve been enjoying his company a great deal. Mr Peglar is also good company, and I think you and he would get on wonderfully. He has someone he misses too, as much as I miss you, and they do not get to see each other at all compared to us. When we have our cottage, we should invite them to stay, I think. It’s as you’ve said, people such as we must stick together. The three of us all called Henry, isn’t that strange? I wonder if any of the other Henrys are of the same variety!

I wish I had more to tell you, but sleep calls for me most urgently. Unaccustomed as I am to walking such distances, my feet and legs are at once in agony at utterly numb, and I am exhausted to my bones.

I hope you shall not appear in my dreams tonight, for as enjoyable as such dreams always are, they are often not the sort I wish to have when surrounded by others.

Your Harry

——

My Harry

I miss you very much. My moods have been bad today thinking of you out there alone not alone but not with me not safe. I worry about you a lot ~~i~~ **I** **k** no **w** you told me not to but ~~i~~ **I** do all the same. I **’** ve not much to report from the ship except that Jacko made it on deck & went up the mizzen & ~~i~~ **I** was sent up after her she came down with a little coa ~~ks~~ **x** ing & then some more to get her from my head it seems she likes my hair al ~~l~~ most as much as you. After the Commander told me about when he had a cheet ~~er~~ **ah** for a pet aboard one of his ships. Can you imagine it a great wild cat on a ship. It made me think of you & what animal you might have as ship’s mascot ~~i~~ **I** thought you might choose a sea bird like a puffin because they remind me of you or those big ones you like **c** ~~k~~ ormorants that you say remind you of me. Then ~~i~~ **I** thought you might choose a crab but ~~i~~ **I** don’t think they **’** d make for good pets much as you love them. The book is still good & ~~i~~ **I** want to tell you all about this Moll Flanders but ~~i~~ **I** don’t want to spoil it for you so ~~i~~ **I** won’t but she is very bad & very good & very funny.

I let Mr B. look this one over & he cor r ected it for me a bit as you can tell. I will try to do the next one without him though  I may need his help with spelling.

Your Henry

——

My perfect Harry

I hope very much that you’re allright. When I finished my last letter I spent time with Mr B. & we practiced my writing togethera while so I’m writing you another right away. My spelling is still awfull but he had me write out things he called contractions - I can spell that now too - like you’re & he’d & we’ve & showed me how to use them properly & I think I’m doing allright with it. He told me I need to do capital I when it’s by it’self like that so I do that now to. He’s a friend on Terror much like you & I are friends & his friend struggles a lot with reading & writing to so Mr B. has a lot of practis teaching. My reading is allright but I was allways bad at writing as you know - that’s another I learned today if it’s the opposite of yes it’s no & if it’s anything else it’s know. I won’t let him read this one even though I trust him with us because I want to tell you what I didn’t in the last & that is that I dreamed of you the last night & woke up needing you very badly or failing that some time to myself & I had neither so when I see you again I am going to be in a bad state for you & you will have to be careful with me because it’ll happen with not much effort at all on your part. I miss your body & your lips and your lovely yard & I want to touch you so very badly I think I’ll die if I don’t get to soon. The Commander said you’ll be back in a day or 2 which isn’t nearly fast enough.

Yours in every which way

Henry

——

Dearest Henry,

I hope more than anything that it is me who’s giving you these letters but that no longer seems to be guaranteed. I’ve entrusted them to Mr Peglar in the event that anything should happen to me.

Henry, I was a fool when I left Erebus. I believed this to be an adventure, a chance for discovery. The potential for danger barely entered my mind and yet it is clear to me now that I am far too soft a man to be here. Perhaps the same is true of my leaving Britain at all. No matter what becomes of me, I will never regret joining Erebus because it brought me to you but even so, we must both admit now that I was naive in the extreme to believe this to be a relatively low risk endeavour.

We climbed the ridge where ice met land and made our way to the cairn without trouble yet when we returned to where we had left the boat, we found it had been set upon by an animal. I know polar bears to be large and powerful beasts but that one could do such damage still amazes me. Were that not enough, a storm has driven us into our tent, and hail the size of billiard balls rains down as we huddle here and listen for signs of the bear’s return. It is out there, we are sure of it, and the mood among us is that we’re sitting ducks.

I am ashamed to admit that I am afraid. I wish a great many things in this moment, most of all that I had met you on land, so that I would not fear dying without knowing what it is to fall asleep on your chest and wake there in your arms. It is difficult not to long for you now even as I am glad you are not here to face this danger too, and are instead safe and (I hope) warm back home. I wish too that I had said more to you that last, wonderful night we had together. I should’ve told you I loved you until I was hoarse with it, and now I’m afraid I may never tell you in words again. So let me tell you now, darling Henry: I am utterly and completely in love with you, my heart is yours, my body and soul too. All of me belongs to you and always shall. I’ve never been so happy as when I’m with you, you are everything to me. What we have shared these past months has meant more to me than anything in the world.

If the worst should happen and I should not make it home to you, I hope you can forgive me for it. Do not give up without me, do not let your moods darken irreparably, you must keep going for me and make a life for yourself that will make you happy. Please, darling Henry. For me.

Forever yours,

Harry

——

My Harry,

Where are you right now, I wonder out there on the ice, I looked for you with my glass earlyer but I could’nt see you. I can’t sleep so I’m doing more practising for you. Mr B also said I need to read out my letters in my head if I want to use commers like you do & make my notes sound more literery as he called it & to put them where it sounds like I should take a breath if I were speaking.

Get home safe Harry, I am worried about you.

Yours always

Henry

——

Henry,

Writing this on way home. Gore dead. Can’t stop seeing it. Think we shall make it but can’t be sure. Love you dearly and always.

——

My Harry who is almost home,

They said this morning they spied you on the horizon so, soon I will be able to have you in my arms again, & I can’not bear the wait.

Your Henry who is waiting for you


End file.
